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Monthly Archives: March 2018

Where’s That Rattlesnake Update?

Mandi hasn’t forgotten y’all, it’s just that circumstances have combined to make any Rattlesnake House renovation update rather skimpy. On the other hand, the reasons why it’s NOT had much progress are pretty interesting, so let’s talk about that. I’m qualified to update you on the NON work stuff!

The cabin is behind my attractive horse, who is scratching his neck at sunset. It’s the best picture I could find.

Actually, on Monday, Chris and Gary did get more plumbing and electric work done. That was pretty good. No one got hurt. Things went fine.

A Break for a New Project

Tuesday, though, the guys switched over to another project for the Wild Hermits Ranch (which happens to be across the street and is owned by Sue Ann, Lee, and their friends Ralph and Sara). We may have mentioned before that the old cabin on the property had bathroom issues, and we’d hoped to use the shower enclosure that had been left at Rattlesnake over there. But nope, we couldn’t get it in the house. So, Chris agreed to bid on the project to put in a two-piece shower, fix up the wall, and make a reasonable bathroom for the young man who is living there (and who currently showers at the neighbor’s house). The cabin is a COOL place, and the oldest building on the ranch. It used to be a hunting cabin, according to a previous owner, who’d lived there when what is now three properties was one. Interesting.

Animal Emergency

While working on the cabin, Chris and Mandi realized there was an issue with the puppy Chris had brought along with him. It just wasn’t acting right. So, the project had to be cut short. Lee told Chris that pets and kids always come first, so he was encouraged to go find out what was wrong with the little fellow (“little” is not a great word, since we hear it’s part Great Dane). While we were waiting word on the dog’s progress, and Mandi kept an eye out on her older puppy, who played with Chris’s. We worry about parvo. However, this morning Chris sent us an update, and while the pup is still very sick and in the pet hospital, they aren’t sure what the diagnosis is. The good news is that she’s improving and should get to come home tomorrow. Yay!

Diamondback rattlesnakes can get mighty big. This one that met its end at the Rattlesnake House is medium sized. Eek. Photo courtesy of C. Coufal.

And Then Mother Nature Struck

Meanwhile, a big ole storm front came through and gave us around four inches of much-needed rain. All our tanks (ponds) got filled up, and the creek went above its banks (but not too badly, so that’s okay; we are used to some flooding on the flood plain; that’s why it’s a flood plain). Rain is good, but it makes mud. Once Mandi realized that she almost got stuck out at Rattlesnake while driving a 4-wheel drive truck, she didn’t want Chris and Gary to get stuck in their regular truck out there. So, she officially declared a rain day.

Speaking of Nature

The house is still lives up to its name, by the way. Last week the rancher who leases the property next door found two whoppers, one in the Rattlesnake driveway, and one on his side. There’s an abandoned house next door that we think is a hotbed of snake nesting activity. So, from now on, everyone wears boots over there!

 

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Celebration Is Important

We hadn’t been celebrating our wins as we originally had planned to. We’d closed on a number of properties since we enjoyed a celebratory glass of bubbly.

A sleeping angel.

Well, that could NOT go on forever, plus we need to regroup and make new plans. We decided to have a meeting of the directors and Ray Ramirez, to talk about the lessons learned from the Oakridge project. Since the meeting was at the Bobcat Lair, Anita was also there.

Plus there was a very cute visiting dog named Pattycake. She did not sleep the whole time. She was a bundle of fun, but darned well behaved for a doggie in a strange place, surrounded with strangers.

Lessons Learned

So, Lee and Ray had a long discussion about what our profit was, and why it wasn’t just the amount of the check we got back at closing. We’ve learned that we have to pay back the expenses we incurred during the renovation that were not just what the contractor charged, such as all the holding costs (insurance, mortgage, etc.). Plus we had to pay back the hard money lender and their hefty interest. That was one of the harder lessons learned, and did not lead to great rejoicing for a couple team members.

Our team, along with GC Ray Ramirez, toast the completed Oakridge project. There were no photos where everyone’s eyes were open. 

But, we learned a lot about the model of having the contractor be one of the financers of a project. Ray covered the remodeling cost, then got a percentage of the profit. This is good incentive to finish a project on time and under budget! The more you save, the more you profit. We might try this again on another project.

We also were proud of the job Carol did managing the project, using the systems we’d learned to get it done in 88 days! Two days ahead of the 90-day goal! We did spend quite a bit on staging and landscaping, but that may well have been why we ended up with multiple offers and selling above listing price.

Public Celebration!

Of course, we enjoyed our bubbly, even if some of us were driving and didn’t drink any. We even sent off the information on our “win” to the folks at FortuneBuilders. Russell got a nice email back, and it made us all feel good when he read it to us!

Onward and upward now. We’re still evaluating prospects for our next few projects. Suggestions welcome!

 

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Thoughts about Electricians

This guy is NOT the ideal electrician!

We have been running into interesting electrical difficulties with a couple of properties. One of these we had completely rewired by a very “creative” person. Much of it has now been re-done. And now the hallway has a light fixture. By saving money and using someone without official credentials, we opened ourselves up to having to pay to wire the same house twice. That’s an expensive lesson.

Once wiring is covered up by drywall you can’t see it. I sure wish I could see inside the walls in the Bobcat master bathroom. Then I’d know why the little button won’t push in on the GFI, yet the circuit breaker hasn’t tripped. I used to like having outlets by my vanity. Oh well. We’ll have to wait until we have the budget and our licensed contractor with his electrician assistant can take a look. I sure hope no repainting is involved.

When one thing fails, it always makes you wonder about the rest, doesn’t it? So, shell out the bucks for good electrical work on your projects, friends!

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What If Your Dog Is Houdini?

This is mostly who Wink really is all the time.

As the Rattlesnake House project draws ever closer to finish, now I must begin the process of building the dog pen. I know it will be completed soon. I just have that gut feeling where my laziness is telling me we’re going to be working hard soon and not laying around sleeping late on weekends.

Building a good dog pen shouldn’t be too bad, right? I have one large size (not as large as Alfred), one medium size, one small size, and one toy size dog. Just make sure any fence we build is tall enough for the large not to step over and small enough wire for the toy to not slip through, right? Well, if the medium size wasn’t my trusty husky/collie Wink, that would be true. Wink digs, jumps, and climbs. It seems that if you can throw water through a fence she can get out of it. She favors more husky traits than collie, and I had hoped for different when it came to being able to escape from things even Al Capone wouldn’t have tried to escape from.

She got really bad about jumping out of her first dog pen. So we raised it a couple of feet. She was not deterred. She just started climbing out. I tried an electric wire across the top of that dog pen. I favored that rather than the punishment the highway we lived on would have provided. She learned that a quick pop to the nose and just pushing through to the thick double coat on her neck would allow her passage under it. Then she figured out how to avoid the nose pop.

What Next?

I looked into underground fencing. The collars are designed to send a mild shock when they get too close to the buried wire. The collar wouldn’t go through her hair. Other husky owners also regaled me with stories of how that wouldn’t work and she would just keep running the other way until it lost signal if it even managed to hit a spot of skin.

She can go over, and under. So now what? She can’t be just locked inside the house all of the time, apparently. She has broken a couple of windows too. The first was her and the big dog, Sarge, who were after a threat to their property. Now she just knows that she can, so she will. She has to go outside sometimes for exercise and doggie business anyway. She hates the leash, and I don’t do chaining or dog runners unless I have no other option.

I staked her out once while cleaning. The stake and wire was rated for 200 pounds. She is only like 45 or 50, so it should work, right? A little overkill to do the job. They were incorrect when they left off, “Ineffective for huskies once they are able to open their eyes.” So how do we keep a Wink inside of a fence? Is she doomed to only be able to go outside on a leash and never have any freedom? That’s not good for a husky. I started doing my homework about how to treat the bad traits rather than just training. That was step one.

Continue reading →

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One Step Closer for Saint John

Someone likes this shiny kitchen!

We’ve had so many interesting “challenges” with the Saint John property in San Antonio. Because of that, we are taking NO step forward for granted.

At the end of last week, we found out that the house had appraised. This is really good, since we’ve dealt with houses not appraising before (happened on the first house we did as a company), and the last time we did get Saint John appraised, it was for a lot less money than we sold it for this time.

But, whew, it all came out well. We’re really grateful to our San Antonio agent friend, Bobby Nix, who has been an invaluable help with the sale of this property. He’s had a few challenges to deal with, and we’re really grateful for his perseverance and flexibility!

Now that it’s appraised, we will install the air conditioning, which is our last duty.

Hope the closing goes smoothly. Then we can breathe!

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